The Fallen

 

The woodlands I’ve frequented over the years are scattered with the remains of fallen trees. Either through old age, by saw or storm, they lie motionless and skeletal on the ground among the still vibrant, living forest. As the seasons pass they’re soaked, roasted and frozen. The bark, their skin, falls away and they become like the remains of some perished, squid like leviathan, the antlers of a giant, mythical woodland beast, or any manner of impossible animal. When encrusted with lichen, fungi and moss, some look like serpentine creatures struggling out of the undergrowth, barely supporting their heavy trunk with slowly failing limbs. This is also true of those that find themselves falling into the flow of a river in flood. They can emerge many miles from where they fell, embedded in a riverbank, or even ending up on the coast, where they become comfy seats for beachgoers and fuel for campfires.

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The newly toppled always bring some sadness. The older, weathered individuals that were downed decades hence bring textures and shapes, shadowy, surreal, bizarre and beautiful to the forest landscape, that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye of photographers like me. 

This collection of images, photographed over 15 years or so, is a tribute to these creatures - and I do think of them as creatures!- that bring as much to us as mighty sentinels standing tall, as they do when they become The Fallen.